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Oct 5, 2014

Germany wants to revive Euro Hawk

German Defence Minister wants to revive the high-altitude reconnaissance drone Euro Hawk after the government backed away from plans to buy some last year.
Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung said it had learnt from the defence ministry that it wanted "to get the Euro Hawk drone out of the garage" to be able to test a reconnaissance system for it.
The result of a defence assessment is due to be handed to the ministry on Monday.
Germany backed away last year from its plan to buy four more Euro Hawk drones, which Northrop Grumman Corp developed with Airbus based on the Global Hawk design.
Meeting the standards required to win aviation approval would cost 500 million to 600 million euros. But Northrop remains in long-running talks with the country about the stalled purchase.
The German armed forces had in recent months tested whether the reconnaissance system could be used on other platforms but had found that they could not be.
It said if tests with the Euro Hawk prototypes proved successful, a carrier would need to be purchased and a new version of the Global Hawk was probably the only system that would be considered. The Euro Hawk is based on the Global Hawk.
German news magazine Spiegel also said the Euro Hawk was under discussion again after consulting firm KPMG recommended in a report due to be presented this week remedying gaps in reconnaissance technology equipment in the armed forces with an 'unmanned' aircraft as a carrier.reuters